Entry 10: The Necessary Monster
Age 28 - Present Day
Today I found something I wasn’t looking for, while searching for someone who might understand.
My oracle visions have been showing me fragments of another aetherweave-sensitive person - someone whose magical resonance feels different from the corruption I usually hunt. Not twisted by the Umbra, but touched by something… cleaner. The visions led me toward the Last Light, that beacon of hope rising from the settlement like a defiant finger thrust at the dark sky of our forsaken age.
I’ve been tracking this person for weeks, following the faint magical traces my scars can detect, hoping against hope that I might find someone else who understands what it’s like to see beyond the veil. Someone who might have answers about why I alone seem to witness the cosmic horror pressing against reality’s boundaries.
But hunger led me astray. The smell of properly cooked fish drifting from Hope’s Call was too tempting to ignore. After weeks of travel rations and whatever I could scavenge from corrupted wastelands, the aroma of seasoned, flame-grilled fish called to something deep in my soul. Something that remembered what it felt like to enjoy a meal instead of merely survive one.
So I followed my nose instead of my visions.
What I found around that fire wasn’t the aetherweave-sensitive person I’d been tracking. Instead, I discovered something potentially more valuable: companions who might actually understand the weight of necessary choices.
Not the oracle sight - I’ll probably never find another who sees what I see. But the burden of doing terrible things for essential reasons. The loneliness of being the person who acts when others hesitate. The knowledge that sometimes survival requires becoming something others fear.
They accepted me despite knowing what I am. Maybe because of it.
We shared stories around Hope’s Call’s fire, and I found myself talking about things I’d kept buried for years. The corruption outbreaks I’d stopped. The impossible choices I’d made. The cosmic horror I witness every time I shadow-step between dimensions. I even told them about Bright-Claw, and how his smile when I ended his suffering still haunts my dreams.
For the first time in years, I sat with people who didn’t flinch when I moved too fast or too silently. Who didn’t watch my hands for signs of aggression. Who didn’t treat every word as potential threat or lie. Who understood that sometimes monsters are necessary, and that the real tragedy isn’t becoming one - it’s having to become one alone.
I’d forgotten what it felt like to be trusted. To have someone hand you their back without checking first to make sure you weren’t about to plant a knife in it.
The oracle visions are stronger than ever now. I see the final incursion approaching - something so vast it will rewrite the laws of physics just by existing in our dimension. The corruption I’ve been fighting is just the advance scouts. The real invasion hasn’t started yet.
But I also see something else in these new companions. Potential. The ability to find solutions I can’t see because my visions focus on threats, not opportunities. They look at problems I’d solve with a blade and find entirely different approaches.
Maybe that’s why I was drawn here. Maybe the oracle sight isn’t just about tracking aetherweave signatures or seeing cosmic dangers - maybe it’s about recognizing the people capable of changing the game entirely. Maybe the person I was meant to find wasn’t the one my visions showed me, but the group that would accept what I’ve become.
I told them about the aetherweave-sensitive person I’d been tracking, the one whose trail led me to the Last Light. They didn’t dismiss it as madness or corruption. Instead, they offered to help me continue the search. Not because they have to, but because they understand that in the Age of Umbra, every person touched by uncorrupted magic might be crucial to humanity’s survival.
I won’t burden them with the full scope of what’s coming. Not yet. They have their own growth to do, their own strength to find. But when the time comes - when reality itself starts breaking down and impossible choices have to be made - I’ll be ready to stand between them and the darkness.
I’ve spent years becoming the monster this world needs. Accepting corruption to fight corruption. Embracing isolation to protect connection. Sacrificing my humanity to preserve the human.
But around this fire, listening to their voices, seeing their capacity for hope despite everything… I remember why it’s worth it. Why someone has to be willing to damn themselves so others can remain pure. Why the necessary monster has to exist.
The waterfalls still flow upward in my dreams. But now, sometimes, I dream of them flowing down again. Of natural laws restored, reality healed, the barriers between dimensions strong and true.
I don’t know if those dreams are prophecy or just hope. But for the first time since my exile, I’m willing to believe they might be both.
My companions are sleeping now, trusting me to keep watch. One of them is even snoring. The sound is ridiculously comforting - proof that somewhere in this forsaken Age of Umbra, people can still sleep peacefully because someone else is willing to stare into the cosmic darkness and grin back at it.
My name is Captain Howling Banjo. I am the shadow between the light and the darkness. I am the price paid for tomorrow’s possibility.
And despite everything - the scars, the exile, the terrible knowledge of what’s coming - I am no longer alone.
In fact, I think I just figured out my next prank. Something involving their bedrolls and strategically placed bioluminescent fungi from my homeland. Even at the end of the world, some traditions are sacred.
Tomorrow we’ll continue searching for the aetherweave-sensitive person my visions revealed. But tonight, for the first time in years, I’m not searching alone.
🔗 Journal Navigation
Previous Entry: Entry 9 - Revelation (Age 27)
Next Entry: None - Current Entry
Related Files:
Journal Entry 10 of 10 - Finding hope in companionship
📚 Complete Journal Series
Banjo’s Personal Journey - Age 14 to 28:
- Entry 1 - The Young Scout (Age 14)
- Entry 2 - First Vision (Age 16)
- Entry 3 - The Mentor’s Trust (Age 18)
- Entry 4 - The First Kill (Age 20)
- Entry 5 - The Outbreak (Age 22)
- Entry 6 - Into the Wild (Age 23)
- Entry 7 - The Hunt Begins (Age 24)
- Entry 8 - The Price of Power (Age 26)
- Entry 9 - Revelation (Age 27)
- Entry 10 - The Necessary Monster (Age 28) (Current)
Ten snapshots of a life shaped by visions, loss, and impossible choices in the Age of Umbra - chronicling the transformation from playful young scout to oracle-touched guardian of reality itself.